Eric: If only there was a "lightning path" reference!

I admit it. Straub absolutely fucking nailed me between the eyes. I mean, Milholland is Godlike, and his strip has caused a tidal wave of reactions almost as much fun to read, but Straub came out of nowhere with this.

Right down to the "whump" sound effect. And the fact that we can't see her face clearly.

I swear to fucking Christ, if she shows up in tomorrow's GPF being treated by that Doctor, I'll start reading it again.

Tasty, tasty biscuit, M. Straub. That's two for the same car accident, so far. It's a biscuit explosion.

If there were any way that any way... well, two artists on hiatus, two other comics working from archived strips only, and the fifth involving werewolves...

... what, Kestrel? Naw, Kestrel is yesterday's news.

I'm talking about continuing Vaporware's hit & run spree. }:-{D

Kris@WLP (besides, Aeire would hunt me down and kill me if I put Kestrel into a WLP strip, even in a cameo }:-{D )

Comment from: baf posted at February 24, 2005 10:29 PM

You know what would be wacky? If, after months of fan speculation on whether Kestrel was going to become a regular character in Something Positive, she instead joined the cast of Checkerboard Nightmare on an ongoing basis.

Comment from: Dave Van Domelen posted at February 24, 2005 10:33 PM

In which Kestrel finds out that her job is not exactly what she thought it'd be, eh Kris? :) ("Ow, boobies!")

Dave, if it went that way, and I guarantee you it won't, it would be a Chichi-chan strip where Kestrel dies, goes to Hell... and hell is the WLP Studios. }:-{D

The SP strip worked because (a) it wasn't -necessarily- Kestrel, but you could pretty much tell who it was supposed to be, and (b) it was a short and sweet way of indicating that Kestrel was NOT joining the SP cast. In no uncertain terms.

The Chex strip works because (a) the focus of the humor is on the wreck, and NOT on the fact that it's Kestrel in someone else's strip, and (b) Chex rips off of other comics, web and print, with reckless and gleeful abandon.

Since there has never been a rumor that Kestrel is moving to a WLP strip, since none of the WLP strips can be easily shifted to accommodate a reference to a hit & run, and since WLP has yet to parody or reference in detail any online webcomic, it's damn difficult for any WLP strip to make the reference without making Kestrel the focus of the strip.

Which might be mildly funny, but would also be a blatant and uninspired ripoff of Aeire, Randy, -and- my fellow Kris-with-a-K. Even if I disregarded what a slap in their faces that would be, -I- wouldn't enjoy that; I'm capable of better.

So I'll just settle for admitting that I, as a writer, and certain of WLP's artists as well, are influenced by Aeire's methods, as witness the 40th page of Chocolate Milkmaid (direct link not included in order to protect young, fragile, innocent minds).

At first, I was rather disappointed with Checkerboard Nightmare over this. It seemed unoriginal to just crib the joke from another webcomic and rearrange it a little bit.

Then I realized... it was an opportunity to play off a joke in another webcomic, that was making fun of another webcomic. And that's like a grand slam for CxN. And he did it well, too... Vaporware's dialogue was near perfect.

However, I think we've reached the point that any further references to Kestrel, in any webcomic, ever again, will look cliched, and will definitely not measure up...